Wkhtmltopdf rotativa ASP.NET Core MVC issue

Question

I am using a digital ocean droplet using Ubuntu 18.04 LTS and deployed my ASP.NET Core 5.0 MVC project on it and everything works great. I was trying to install rotativa on it to print pdf documents but I cannot make this work.

I followed these steps: https://blog.elmah.io/generate-a-pdf-from-asp-net-core-for-free/

But I am getting this error when trying to print the pdf:

Exception: QPainter::begin(): Returned false Exit with code 1, due to unknown error.

I have this in my Startup.cs:

using Wkhtmltopdf.NetCore;

namespace farmamest
{
    public class Startup
    {
        public Startup(IConfiguration configuration)
        {
            Configuration = configuration;
        }

        public IConfiguration Configuration { get; }

        // This method gets called by the runtime. Use this method to add services to the container.
        public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
        {
            // services.AddControllersWithViews();
            services.AddRazorPages();
            services.Configure<ForwardedHeadersOptions>(options =>
            {
                options.KnownProxies.Add(IPAddress.Parse("10.0.0.100"));
            });

            services.AddDefaultIdentity<IdentityUser>(options => options.SignIn.RequireConfirmedAccount = false)
            .AddRoles<IdentityRole>()
            .AddEntityFrameworkStores<Context>();
            services.AddControllersWithViews();

            services.Configure<IdentityOptions>(options =>
              {
                  // Password settings.
                  options.Password.RequireDigit = false;
                  options.Password.RequireLowercase = false;
                  options.Password.RequireNonAlphanumeric = false;
                  options.Password.RequireUppercase = false;
                  options.Password.RequiredLength = 6;
                  options.Password.RequiredUniqueChars = 1;

                  // Lockout settings.
                  options.Lockout.DefaultLockoutTimeSpan = TimeSpan.FromMinutes(15);
                  //options.Lockout.MaxFailedAccessAttempts = 5;
                  options.Lockout.AllowedForNewUsers = true;

                  // Default SignIn settings.
                  options.SignIn.RequireConfirmedEmail = false;
                  options.SignIn.RequireConfirmedPhoneNumber = false;

                  // User settings.
                  options.User.AllowedUserNameCharacters =
                    "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789-._@+";
                  options.User.RequireUniqueEmail = true;

              });

            services.ConfigureApplicationCookie(options =>
            {
                // Cookie settings
               // options.Cookie.Name = Configuration["CookieName"];
                options.Cookie.HttpOnly = true;
                options.ExpireTimeSpan = TimeSpan.FromMinutes(5);

                options.LoginPath = "/Identity/Account/Login";
                options.AccessDeniedPath = "/Identity/Account/AccessDenied";
                options.ReturnUrlParameter = CookieAuthenticationDefaults.ReturnUrlParameter;
                options.SlidingExpiration = true;
            });

            

            services.Configure<CookiePolicyOptions>(options =>
            {
                // This lambda determines whether user consent for non-essential cookies is needed for a given request.
                options.CheckConsentNeeded = context => true;
            // options.MinimumSameSitePolicy = SameSiteMode.None;
            });

            services.AddMvc(config =>
            {
                // var policy = new AuthorizationPolicyBuilder()
                //                 .RequireAuthenticatedUser()
                //                 .Build();
                // config.Filters.Add(new AuthorizeFilter(policy));
            });

            services.Configure<PasswordHasherOptions>(option =>
            {
                option.IterationCount = 12000;
            });

            services.AddWkhtmltopdf("Rotativa");

        }

        // This method gets called by the runtime. Use this method to configure the HTTP request pipeline.
        public void Configure(IApplicationBuilder app, IWebHostEnvironment env)
        {
            if (env.IsDevelopment())
            {
                app.UseDeveloperExceptionPage();
                // app.UseMigrationsEndPoint();
            }
            else
            {
                app.UseExceptionHandler("/Error");
                // The default HSTS value is 30 days. You may want to change this for production scenarios, see https://aka.ms/aspnetcore-hsts.
                app.UseHsts();
            }

            app.UseForwardedHeaders(new ForwardedHeadersOptions
            {
                ForwardedHeaders = ForwardedHeaders.XForwardedFor | ForwardedHeaders.XForwardedProto
            });

            app.UseHttpsRedirection();
            app.UseStaticFiles();

            //cookie policy
             app.UseCookiePolicy();

            app.UseRouting();

            app.UseAuthentication();
            app.UseAuthorization();

            app.UseDefaultFiles();

            app.UseEndpoints(endpoints =>
            {
                endpoints.MapControllerRoute(
                    name: "default",
                    pattern: "{controller=Home}/{action=Index}/{id?}");
                endpoints.MapRazorPages();
            });
        }
    }
}

I saved the files in <foldername>/<projectname>/bin/Debug/net5.0/Rotativa

How do I make this work? Is this version of net issue related? I am using net5.0, I cant find solutions in the web, I got headaches.

Answer 1

It's an issue with .NET 5. Looks related to the invoking Wkhtmltopdf.

https://github.com/fpanaccia/Wkhtmltopdf.NetCore/issues/46